Archive for the ‘My own endeavours’ Category

Board 51

Posted in Chess, My own endeavours, Tournament Chess on September 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »

With seven hours to go only, I am quite excited about representing the South of England as we compete against the North of England, a match which last occured 126 years ago. Given the current climate, the match has to be held on-line, and once again I am six hours ahead, meaning I will most likely be playing at gone 3am again.

Details of the match can be found in both below:

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/online-north-v-south-challenge-2020/

<a href=”https://englishchessonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/N-v-S-Board-Finder.pdf” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>https://englishchessonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/N-v-S-Board-Finder.pdf</a>

With 107 boards that means 214 English men will compete against each other. The North of England is the slightly stronger team, with an overall average rating of 139, given that the South of England has an overall average rating of 132. There’s a noticeable difference between the two teams on the top ten boards but it evens out the further down you go. My opponent’s rating being exactly the same as mine on board 51. Seven points is not a big difference but perhaps the strength at the top is what will bring home victory for the North of England.

There are four players from Bedfordshire competing, I have the black pieces and am sincerely hoping for 1. e4, in which case my opponent is in for quite a shock! It’s a very passive opening I play but being played by a southern softy it’s not. I know it very well and know what to target, how to transpose and when, if necessary. There is, in fact, very little left to learn regarding that opening, so in all probability I will come out of the opening with a slightly better position or one relatively equal but leading to a type of middlegame I have much more experience with than him.

Whether he remains a happy mathematician should he see this played against him remains to be seen!

Olcmarcus

Read Full Post »

Duped whilst under the influence…

Posted in My own endeavours on July 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I feel as though I’ve been drugged and duped. Snatched from the off-line world and dragged into a murky on-line underworld courtesy of a dark descent full of twists and turns, the last of which knocked me unconscious.

Only if you fancy a game drop me a note. I had to join both https://lichess.org/ and https://www.chess.com/ and go under the username Olcmarcus in both…as you may know Olc is Gaelic for evil. But evil at chess I am not, just out of practice and tactically poorer than ever because concentration levels are at an all-time low.

If you want to play, you’ll probably win. I’m brilliant at blundering, I really am. Despite impressions gained by this site I genuinely am only a strong club player at best, and usually your average club player. Yes I’ve beaten an FM, yes I’ve drawn with an IM, yes I put up a solid defence for long enough against a GM rated 2620 once, but that aside -nothing.

Because quite a lot of people seem to like my site, I thought I’d reach out and we’d play. The choice is, of course, yours.

Marcus McCreadus

Read Full Post »

38351 + 1

Posted in My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on May 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Phew! so that’s the most engaging writing project of my entire life done, all that remains is what to do with all 38351 words of it. It’s most likely publishable but that’s not something I consider to be an achievement, so I will have to ponder further over that. Alternatively I may just include excerpts from that 1 weight lifted off my shoulders.

I’m sad to say my focus therefore ability went through the roof, which makes it much harder to read and watch anything as I can dismantle it in an instance, and usually offer improvements without much, if any, thought. Even the book that inspired me to undertake it, which is exceptionally high-brow for chess, almost certainly as high-brow as it gets. I can see where the narrative needs improvement and how continuity could be improved in places.

I was thinking about writing posts about the joys of writing about chess but perhaps I’ll change to the woes of focusing on something your good at instead. Beginning with ‘The woe of increasing your wordpower and the amount of investment in time and resources that will remain in play for good.’

Nothing chess-related to be added other than a rumination. If the author’s insertion of a quote does indeed apply to chess at its highest level as the author suggests, there is either a very strong argument to give it all up or as I narrative in my own piece, find something far better to do than play chess (which by the way is unsurprisingly easy) ‘The will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win’.

Mark

Read Full Post »

34621

Posted in My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I could say I can’t keep my hands out of the cookie jar or I could say tidying up the writing project with pics, a video or two and a realization that a well-chosen quote at the end each part helps strengthen it further.

Is there really nothing left now,

Left to sit so I can forget about it temporarily,

So that I no longer sigh when I look through it,

I won’t do that more than the once,

For if you do not stop something, something will stop you,

I do not see a stop sign nor beyond the stop sign lies a sign saying ‘an on-line community is coupled to the general public’

That’s a sign I may initially turn away from when I see it…

Read Full Post »

33545

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Word count is 33545.

Read Full Post »

The Relief

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours on March 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »

It’s 0446 March 13th. Finally I’ve finished. The project I have been working on for 19 months was completed in November but much re-writing had to take place and the editorial procedure was drawn out and repeated twice, so that’s three times in total. Finally its all done now and I don’t have to write anymore.

Just need to add about ten quotes and selected pics. I doubt whether I shall bother with an Appendix, so a proofread and off to the publishers it is.

Phew!

Read Full Post »

How quaint self-imposed exile is.

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I -and no I’m not telling you where- came here to write and to read. I am engaged in a major project that will have to be sent out for publication, what comes of that you shall stay informed of. There is a second project too a second too perhaps but for that I am still reading more postmodern history than doing the research, which per se only started a few weeks back…

I’m very happy to say that I have just finished the second draft/editorial procedure of my main meaning only one more is left. My writing style has tightened so much there may be much to do but I doubt it. Should I stay focused it should be finished. Then I have to let it slip in case something I have forgotten emerges. The publishing company will have decide the genre themselves. Of course I know exactly what it is but I am as unpretentious as I was 1000 years before I was born, so it is up to them. Six-eight hours of writing and 2 hours of reading a day undisturbed. Bliss.

And so an afternoon of rest beckons then the final draft begins. It’s probably the only thing I will ever write where I do want people to read. When I said I come from a hardened working-class background, believe me I was not joking. How many of you reading this have seen with your own eyes your board knocked over because your opponent his ripped of table legs and -Bruce-Lee like- went smacking pupils in the head, bollocks, shins, back, legs, arms…ok so he was going to be expelled shortly anyway for throwing a typewriter at another students head but yes, there is plenty of contact which will raise however many eyebrows you have. Oh btw I never lowered myself to such behaviour, whilst all that went on I only booted in study cubicles, booted chairs about, and hilariously threw hundreds of books out of the windows along with several classmates…there is content far more graphic than that believe me. I’ve had a colourful life, let’s just leave it at that, word count is at present 32793. That will jump at least 5000 words as sections and quotations are missing.

I will keep you posted.

Read Full Post »

Reportage and primary source material…

Posted in Academia, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

I have begun collating material for what is a second project but it may take some years but then of course it may only take months. Rather expensive it is and I’m sorry but reading through Victorian Newspapers isn’t as easy as you might think. Journalism back then was so very different to how it is today. I can assure you that in locating primary source material, what is read in today’s pamphlets and what is read on-line differs greatly to what was written then -lest must we not forget that history written by those with no real interest in it is going to be rather messy, to put it nicely… .

If the past is a foreign county (to refer to an article you might see sooner rather than later I sincerely hope) chess players with no background in history are its immigrants.

Read Full Post »

Progress has been made…

Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 4, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The writing project I have been engrossed in for the last 18 months was completed months ago but the editorial procedure is based on ultra-perfectionism and is thus drawn out… .

The second section, which is based on what I didn’t gain from chess in my youth, had a flaw. There was a missing adjective.

Whilst listening to the British Radio station TalkSport, I heard the word I so badly needed. Whilst watching the world champion defeat Svidler on-line another crucial missing adjective was overheard.

I am now in a position to take care of section two; progress has been made.

The finish line is closer than I think.

Courtesy of the word count, it has to be proofread and sent for publication. Should that not happen I will post it here.

From memory alone, my Dissertation was around 14500 words. Most likely it will be thrice that.

Mark

Read Full Post »

Rolling back those years…

Posted in Chess, My own endeavours, Tournament Chess on March 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

As a reader of this post or as a frequent visitor to this site you can with safety, or assuredly if you prefer, assume I both love to write and love chess. The principle difference between them being, and this will indeed sound odd I only write for myself. In chess of course we have an opponent, team mates, tournament participants and so on. Even when we read alone, chess theory or history or whatever chess you are reading has been written by another individual.

This site is all my own. It is the lifeblood of an injured soul, if you like. I do not care whether I am read and the two requests I received last year to write for whatever those publications were, were politely declined…you could, if you like, call this whole thing a personalized prolonging of my love of chess, which in itself is a form of convalescence. Still it is the case that I am engrossed in a writing project already over 30,000 words and with much work ahead still.

Counting the countries I’ve visited has become tiresome. I think its 37. 34 at least. The number of chess clubs around the world I have played in is also numerous, with some being far easier to play chess in than others. The one club which I have now been a part of longer than any other is Bangkok Chess Club. I’ve photographed main events, met world champions and many things on top, I’ve even played some strong chess there too but never organized a tournament.

Last Friday we had around 19 players, of which 16 were up for the weekly blitz tournaments that occur each Friday at Herrity’s Sports Bar on Sukhumvit Soi 33/1.

So I rolled back those years to when I was the tournament organizer for the Kents/Luton Chess Club for 3/4 seasons and got involved. We used a Swiss system of course but it was daunting to organize one section all by myself when it was not I who wrote the names of the players, making me mispronounce them all the time. I did it effectively but found it hard to focus on my chess. Given I am rusty anyway, my results should have been better. Still it was fun, and being thanked for volunteering meant a little something… .

I always write in orange.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »